Meet the boss - dictionary editor Susan Butler

By Sue White

As the editor of the Macquarie Dictionary, Susan Butler knows she has the type of job people want to talk about at dinner parties.

"It's not a run-of-the-mill job, people do find it intriguing, partly because they tend not to think of books that aren't actually written by someone," she says.

Susan Butler started working at the Macquarie Dictionary in 1970, and still loves the job today.

Her words or not, it's a role Butler doesn't take lightly.

"It is a big responsibility; the sort that everyone who is trying to describe something and get it right has, to do it as faithfully, honestly and accurately as possible...Then there's the responsibility of writing this information into the dictionary in a way that is helpful, and gets what you want to get across to the readers," she says. "People think of the dictionary as a reference book, but it's also a communicative text; you have to write a definition that captures something."

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Butler says she first started at the dictionary as a "fluke", after leaving a teaching career.

"I was given the job as a research assistant in 1970...After a little while I became interested...my interest in it grew and I stayed," she says.

The job also made good use of her university studies in Latin and Greek.

"I did Latin and Greek not knowing what it could be used for. It's been incredibly useful... sometimes I need to follow a word back to old English, or quite commonly, back through to its Latin and Greek roots," she says. Like everyone working on the dictionary, Butler studied lexicology (a branch of linguistics) on the job. Today, the editorial team of five is pared down significantly from the early days, making teamwork essential.

"In the early days we had a much bigger staff; it was a much bigger job. Now we've gone back to a small but loyal [editorial] group as well as the publishing and IT sides," she says. "We argue things out between us, and recognise that different people working on the dictionary all have an area of expertise."

Teamwork also plays a practical role.

"I can have ideas about what I want to do, but I know that the other senior editor will always protect me from serious error," she says.

Now that the online world is here, Butler is responsible for answering queries from the users of the dictionary and writing blogs on points of interest.

"I do feel that I have a strong connection with the users of the dictionary and the language community generally," she says.

Butler also values reader interaction.

"When the dictionary first came out [pre-internet days] we wanted this kind of feedback...I published a little newsletter in the back of it inviting people to write and tell us about words that should be there, and what they thought. All of that seems incredibly old hat now."

Today, it's almost the opposite problem.

"Some days I end up feeling I'm beating people off with a stick; it's so easy now to come to me...[Still] I've never yet found an email from someone to do with the dictionary that hasn't led me somewhere interesting and useful," she says.

CURRICULUM VITAE

Name: Susan Butler

Current position: Editor, Macquarie Dictionary

Responsibilities: All aspects of the content of the dictionary but in particular the collecting of possible new material and the writing of new entries.

Education: Bachelor of Arts, University of Sydney, majoring in Greek and Latin.

Additional training/courses: Like everyone associated with the dictionary, learnt lexicography on the job.

Professional associations: Member of the International Association of World Englishes.